


A Shared Soul

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Hellboy (Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Fae Twins, Meta Analysis in Fic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 03:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4772423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nuala and Nuada are bonded eternally, inescapably. As all twins among the Sidhe are linked, so too are they, and even a divide of ethos and distance and years apart cannot divide them forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shared Soul

Nuala loves her brother. She loves him with her whole heart, knows him utterly and intimately, he is her twin, by the way of Fae they are linked, intrinsically, and inescapably. Even when he turns on them, and calls their father coward, she loves him with that same fierceness. It is a golden love, as fierce as the sun, burning brightly even when it cannot be seen. The court sees the gold on her dresses, the yellow of her skirts, the touch of dawn in her hair, and the cream of her skin, and believe that tells them that she still clings to the light. She does, truly, but it is not the truth of why she is gold. She is gold because her brother is silver. He is dark because she is light. She loves him because he loves her, and her love as fierce as a lioness’, as fierce as the sun’s.

She is not good at fierce, except when it is loving.

Her brother on the other hand… he can love, yes. She knows he loves her, tenderly, dearly, almost naively, sometimes, and knows the inescapable whole hate he holds for humans and for their father. She knows her brother is like the moon – pale with or without her light. That he is seen as lesser, that he gives no light of his own, and can only reflect hers. She knows his heart is riddled with darkness, but that its silver still adores her with all the light it retained from his last glimpse of her. But he is still more night than day, and she is almost glad their mother became stone at their birth that she does not have to see her silver son be so full of darkness.

Their mother, Nuala feels, would not have been able to love Nuada after that. Nuala knows the only reason she loves her brother still is because of their bond, their tie. His first injury was hers, when she tripped and grazed her knee, and he bandaged her cuts, and then tended to his own. Even then they were twinned in pain, and even now it continues.

(Later, years later, Nuala knows her brother’s paths and passage through the world, by the wounds that appear on her skin: she has every scar that he does.)

When he comes to court after so _long_ apart, she can feel their tie singing with the joy of it. There are many reasons that the other Fae fear her, and it is not because she is the princess. With her tie to her brother she knows his mind better than most, and to their eyes she could be corrupted by him. From him she could learn the skill he has with blades and shed her skirt, shed her kindness, shed the light she clings to like a rock in a storm, and turn to the darkness of her brother. Even as she clings fiercely to the light, half of her is weighed down by the same shadows which hold her brother, are pushed and pulled by them so she might sink into them, that she might loose her fingers from the rock she clings to. She knows just how easy it would be to do so.

She knows, too, that it would never happen, but the fear means they do not challenge her queries, so she lets it lie. Their father knows the truth of it, and trusts her still, and that buys more respect than fear. Her brother is silver and darkness, and she is gold and day and her heart is lifted and bright by the mere sight of him. She knows her brother, all fight, no fear, and knows that he would challenge the guards sent to take his weapons.

She also knows he knows their skill, and that he would not leave the fight uninjured. She knows, before even that, that he would never willingly see harm done to her.

She steps forward, and that alone gives her brother pause. He can feel her presence, like an itch beside his muscles, a tautening of muscle, a goosefleshing of skin that only eases when they are distant, or when they are pressed close in embrace. She feels his like summer sunlight on her skin, as warm languidness in her flesh, and knows it would fill her with simple happiness to be able to wrap him in her arms.

She does not, and he sets down his weapon, for her sake.

Nuala is all her brother is and is not, and she holds his shadows in the confines of her hidden heart. Sometimes, while he has been gone, she has hoped he holds her sunlight in his, but when he turns, and she sees his pallor, she knows he has sought no sun, no warmth, nothing of the bright light she holds within herself, making more starkly dark her brothers shadows.

She knows, then, that the only light her brother carries with him is his naivety.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a thing about fucked up relationships ok? I find them fascinating. Comments are much appreciated.


End file.
